Shyness and Learning Adjustment in Senior High School Students: Mediating Roles of Goal Orientation and Academic Help Seeking

Abstract

Learning maladjustment is a common phenomenon in the context of examination-oriented education system in china, especially among high school students who experience intense pressure when preparing for the national college entrance examination. Previous literature suggests that shyness may negatively affect ones’ cognition, emotion, and behavioral performance and lead to academic and social maladjustment. Therefore, learning adjustment among shy high school students is a critical and practical point of inquiry. With a sample of 677 Chinese senior high school students, this study aims to assess the association between shyness and learning adjustment and related mechanisms of goal orientation (i.e., mastery-approach goals, mastery-avoid goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoid goals) and academic help seeking (i.e., instrumental help seeking from teacher, instrumental help seeking from classmate, executive help seeking, and avoidance of help seeking). Self-report measures were adopted to collect information on: demographic characteristics, the level of shyness, goal orientation, academic help seeking, and learning adjustment. Results indicated that shyness was negatively correlated with learning adjustment, and this association was mediated by the dimensions of goal orientation and dimensions of academic help seeking. Specifically, shyness not only predicted learning adjustment through mastery-approach goals, and instrumental help seeking (teachers) but also predicted learning adjustment through the multiple mediating effects of the dimensions of goal orientation and the dimensions of academic help seeking (i.e., mastery-approach goals and instrumental help seeking from teachers, mastery-approach goals and executive help seeking, mastery-avoid goals and instrumental help seeking from classmates, mastery-avoid goals and executive help seeking, and performance-avoid goals and executive help seeking). Identifying these mediators further enables us to work out effective measures to promote shy high school students’ learning adjustment.

High School Students’ Motivation and Help-Seeking Strategies in English Language Learning

“…Thus, the null hypothesis (H0) was rejected and the alternative hypothesis (HA) was accepted. This result was in line with some previous related studies which found that motivation variables, encompassing self-efficacy (Cheong et al, 2010;Won et al, 2021), goal setting (Öztürk & Çakiroğlu, 2018), and mastery-approach goal (Chen et al, 2018) were positively correlated with adaptive help-seeking strategies. Furthermore, the results showed that the students who were more confident in their capability to successfully perform self-regulatory tasks were reported to have higher engagement in learning as they perceived the learning process as a valuable experience (Abadikhah et al, 2018;Won et al, 2021).…”

“…This happened because Sanata Dharma University provided a supportive learning environment that supported students' learning autonomy and self-regulation. Another similar result was also found in the research conducted by Chen, Li, Wang, Li, and Gao (2018) as well as by Abadikhah, Aliyan, and Talebi (2018) in which self-regulated learners with mastery goals and supportive learning environment were reported to engage themselves in adaptive helpseeking behaviour to overcome the academic problems successfully. However, this result contrasted differently from the research conducted by Suryaratri and Shaw (2014).…”

Students in the New Normal: Their Experiences in the Pandemic’s Limited Face-to-Face Classes

“…However, because of the long break from school, most students found it challenging to acclimate to the learning activities and requirements. The findings of the study by Chen, Li, Wang, and Gao (2018) showed that shyness was adversely connected with learning adjustment, with this association being mediated by the characteristics of goal orientation and academic helpseeking. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused most students to miss almost two years of school, most students are hesitant.…”

A Review of the Impact of EFL Teachers’ Affectivity and Surgency and Learners’ Shyness on Their Language Attainment

“…Eventually, in an attempt to scrutinize the relationship between shyness and learning adjustment (the tendency to create a balance in learning settings), Chen et al (2018) conducted a comprehensive study on 670 high-school students in China. They used the 31-item Shyness Scale for Chinese Middle School students to measure the degree of shyness among these students.…”